updated 10:40 am EDT, Fri April 20, 2012

Pulled exploitable PSN games downloadable again

Sony has returned MotorStorm Arctic Edge and Everybody's Tennis to the PlayStation Store, following the firmware update for the PS Vita. The games allowed hackers to exploit vulnerabilities in the PSP emulator, enabling them to run their own software on Sony's handheld game console.

PS Vita owners who bought the games through the PSN Store lost the ability to re-download the titles after purchase following the exploit announcements. Sony did not warn users that they were going to pull titles, preferring to sort the problem of potential piracy before alerting customers to that possibility.

Woholo.net, the hacker site that shared the exploits, welcomed the return of the games to the PSN Store, but has plans to release a new version of VHBL (Vita Half-Byte Loader) for Vita firmware 1.67. It will use a currently unknown game which may suffer a similar fate of being removed from the store within hours of being named.